Lord Alfred Douglas Lord Alfred Douglas ▼ Primary Sources ▼ Lord Alfred Douglas Alfred Bruce Douglas, the third son of John Sholto Douglas , 9th Marquess of Queensberry (1844–1900), and his wife, Sybil Montgomery (1845–1935), was born on 22nd October 1870 at Ham Hill near Worcester . His mother called him Bosie, a name that stuck to him for the rest of his life. Douglas attended Winchester College (1884–8). Although only an average student he did establish the magazine, the Winchester College Pentagram, which gave him an outlet for his poetry. In 1889 he entered Magdalen College . According to his biographer, G. A. Cevasco : "Athletic and handsome, popular with his classmates, he applied himself more to writing verse than his studies (he did not take a degree), but while at Oxford he contributed to the Oxford Magazine and edited the Spirit Lamp." In June 1891, Douglas was introduced to Oscar Wilde . The two men entered into a sexual relationship.

They also worked together and in 1892 Douglas was involved in the French production of Wilde's play, Salomé . They attempted to get it produced in London with Sarah Bernhardt taking the star role but it was banned by the Lord Chamberlain as being blasphemous. It was decided that Salomé should be published in book form and the Pall Mall Budget asked Aubrey Beardsley for a drawing to illustrate the review. The editor rejected the drawing as being obscene. However, in April, 1893, it appeared in the first number of The Studio magazine. Wilde liked the drawing, and his publisher, John Lane , the founder of The Bodley Head , suggested that Beardsley do an illustrated edition of the play. Wilde and Lane were both very pleased with the illustrations Beardsley produced. One of the drawings was considered by Lane as indecent and was not used in the book. Beardsley reacted by writing a short poem: Because one figure was undressed. This little drawing was suppressed. It was unkind. But never mind, Perhaps it was all for the best.

In October 1893 a dispute broke out between Douglas, Oscar Wilde , Aubrey Beardsley and John Lane over the French translation of Salomé . Wilde's biographer, Richard Ellmann , has argued: "Beardsley read the translation and said it would not do; he offered to make one of his own. Wilde, fortunately for Douglas, did not like this either. There ensued an acrimonious fourway controversy among Lane, Wilde, Douglas, and Beardsley. Lane said that Douglas had shown disrespect for Wilde, but backed down when Douglas accused him of stirring up trouble between them. Beardsley declared that it would be dishonest to put Douglas's name on the title page, when the translation had been so much altered by Wilde." Max Beerbohm was an old friend of Wilde and Douglas. He argued that Douglas could be "very charming" and "nearly brilliant" but was "obviously mad (like all his family)". Douglas also had a sexual relationship with Robert Ross , one of Wilde's former lovers. While he was staying with Ross they had sex with two young boys, aged 14 and 15. Both boys confessed to their parents about what happened.

After meetings with solicitors, the parents were persuaded not to go to the police, since, at that time, their sons might be seen not as victims but as equally guilty and so face the possibility of going to prison. In June 1894 Alfred Douglas received a letter from his father on the subject of his friend, Oscar Wilde : "I now hear on good authority, but this may be false, that his wife is petitioning to divorce him for sodomy and other crimes. Is this true, or do you know of it? If I thought the actual thing was true, and it became public property I should be quite justified in shooting him in sight." Douglas replied with a brief telegram: "What a funny little man you are." This enraged Queensberry who decided to carry out more research into the behaviour of Wilde. Queensberry arrived at the home of Oscar Wilde at the end of June. Wilde said to Queensberry: "I suppose you have come to apologize for the statement you made about my wife and myself in letters you wrote to your son. I should have the right any day I chose to prosecute you for writing such a letter....

How dare you say such things to me about your son and me?" He replied, "You were both kicked out of the Savoy Hotel at a moment's notice for your disgusting conduct.... You have taken furnished rooms for him in Piccadilly." Wilde told Queensberry: "Somebody has been telling you an absurd set of lies about your son and me. I have not done anything of the kind." Wilde then evicted Queensberry from his home. On 28th February, 1895, the Marquess of Queensberry left his card at his club, the Albemarle , accusing him of being a "sodomite". Wilde, Douglas and Ross approached solicitor Charles Octavius Humphreys with the intention of suing Queensberry for criminal libel. Humphreys asked Wilde directly whether there was any truth to Queensberry's allegations of homosexual activity between Wilde and Douglas. Wilde claimed he was innocent of the charge and Humphreys applied for a warrant for Queensberry's arrest. Queensberry entered a plea of justification on 30th March.

Owen Dudley Edwards has pointed out: "Having belatedly assembled evidence found for Queensberry by very recent recruits, it declared Wilde to have committed a number of sexual acts with male persons at dates and places named. None was evidence of sodomy, nor was Wilde ever charged with it. Queensberry's trial at the central criminal court, Old Bailey, on 3–5 April before Mr Justice Richard Henn Collins ended in Wilde's attempt to withdraw the prosecution after Queensberry's counsel, Edward Carson QC MP, sustained brilliant repartee from Wilde in the witness-box on questions about immorality in his works and then crushed Wilde with questions on his relations to male youths whose lower-class background was much stressed." Richard Ellmann , the author of Oscar Wilde (1988), has argued that Wilde abandoned the case rather than call Douglas as a witness. Queensberry was found not guilty and his solicitors sent its evidence to the public prosecutor. Wilde was arrested on 5th April and taken to Holloway Prison . The following day, Alfred Taylor , the owner of a male brothel Wilde had used, was also arrested.

Taylor refused to give evidence against Wilde and both men were charged with offences under the Criminal Law Amendment Act (1885). The trial of Wilde and Taylor began before Justice Arthur Charles on 26th April. Of the ten alleged sexual partners Queensberry's plea had named, five were omitted from the Wilde indictment. The trial under Charles ended in jury disagreement after four hours. The second trial, under Justice Alfred Wills, began on 22nd May. Douglas was not called to give evidence at either trial, but his letters to Wilde were entered into evidence, as was his poem, Two Loves. Called on to explain its concluding line - "I am the love that dares not speak its name" Wilde answered that it meant the "affection of an elder for a younger man". Both men were found guilty and sentenced to two years' penal servitude with hard labour. The two known persons with whom Wilde was found guilty of gross indecency were male prostitutes, Wood and Parker. Wilde was also found guilty on two counts charging gross indecency with a person unknown on two separate occasions in the Savoy Hotel . These may in fact have related to acts committed by Douglas, who had also been Wood's lover.

Richard Haldane , under instructions from Herbert Gladstone , visited Oscar Wilde in Pentonville Prison on 12th June, 1895. Haldane managed to arrange for Wilde to gain access to books. Wilde was transferred to Wandsworth Prison on 4th July. His friend, Robert Sherrard , visited Wilde on behalf of Constance Wilde, and urged him to repudiate his homosexual friends. In November he was moved to Reading Prison . Douglas remained loyal to Oscar Wilde and wrote letters to the newspapers and unsuccessfully petitioned Queen Victoria for clemency for his lover. He also wrote to Truth Magazine : "I personally know forty or fifty men who practise these acts. Men in the best society, members of the smartest clubs, members of Parliament, Peers, etc., in fact people of my own social standing... At Oxford, where I suppose you would admit one is likely to find the pick of the youth of England, I knew hundreds who had these tastes among the undergraduates, not to mention a slight sprinkling of Dons....

These tastes are perfectly natural congenital tendencies in certain people (a very large minority), and that the law has no right to interfere with these people, provided they do not harm other people; that is to say when there is neither seduction of minors nor brutalisation, and where there is no public outrage on morals." G. A. Cevasco has argued: "Douglas's loyalty to the imprisoned Wilde, his financial generosity, and continued concern, must be viewed in the context of a turbulent relationship involving two highly self-centred and opinionated individuals." Upon Wilde's release from prison in 1897, he took up with Douglas once again. The two men lived together for a while in Naples and after they they met frequently in Paris . Douglas also helped Wilde financially. Douglas published several volumes of poetry during this period including The City of Soul (1899) and Sonnets (1899). After Wilde's death in 1900 Douglas developed a close friendship with Olive Eleanor Custance (1874–1944), the daughter of Colonel Frederick Hambleton Custance (1844–1925), a retired guards officer.

The couple married on 4th March 1902. Soon afterwards, a son, Raymond (1902–1964), was born. Douglas was converted to Roman Catholicism. He became editor of The Academy, but eventually lost the post after disagreements with the publisher and an assistant editor. He upset a lot of people during this period. Herbert Read called him "the most complete cad in history". However, he was defended by Robert Sherrard who claimed he was "thoroughly goodhearted and by no means the moody, irascible revengeful person that many fancy". In 1911 the publisher Martin Secker commissioned Arthur Ransome to write a book on Oscar Wilde . He was given considerable help by Wilde's literary executor, Robert Ross . He provided access not only to Wilde's literary estate, but also to his own private correspondence. Ross wanted Ransome's book to help rehabilitate Wilde's reputation. Ross also wanted to gain revenge on Lord Douglas, who he considered had destroyed Wilde. He did this by letting Ransome see the unabridged copy of De Profundis , the letter Wilde wrote to Douglas when he was in Reading Prison .

Ransome became only the fourth person to read the letter where Wilde accused Douglas of vanity, treachery and cowardice. The book, Wilde: A Critical Study , was published on 12th February 1912. The following month, on 9th March, Lord Douglas filed an action for libel against Ransome and Secker. Ransome's friends, Edward Thomas , John Masefield , Lascelles Abercrombie and Cecil Chesterton gave him support and Robin Collingwood offered to pay his legal costs. Secker settled out of court and sold the copyright of the book to Methuen . The case against Ransome began in the High Court on 17th April 1913. According to Roland Chambers , the author of The Last Englishman: The Double Life of Arthur Ransome (2009): "Douglas had a strong case.

Answering the charge that his client had ruined Wilde, the prosecution pointed out that Douglas was little more than a boy when Wilde first met him, whereas Wilde, almost twenty years his senior, had already written The Picture of Dorian Grey, a scandalous work sprung from a corner of life no proper gentleman ever visited, still less boasted of in print. If there had been any corruption, it had been Wilde's corruption of Douglas." Douglas's counsel went on to argue that Wilde was "a shameless predator who had deprived an innocent boy not only of his inheritance, but of his chastity". Douglas admitted during cross-examination by J. H. Campbell (later Lord Chief Justice of Ireland) that he had deserted Wilde before his original conviction and had not returned to England, let alone visited his friend in prison, in over two years. He also read out correspondence that indicated that Douglas had "consorted with male prostitutes" and had taken money from Wilde, not because he needed it but because it gave him an erotic thrill. Campbell read from a letter written by Douglas: "I remember the sweetness of asking Oscar for money. It was a sweet humiliation." The case took a dramatic turn when the De Profundis letter was read out in court.

It has been described as the "most devastating character assassination in the whole of literature". According to Wilde's letter, Douglas's insatiable appetite, vanity and ingratitude were responsible for every catastrophe. Wilde finished the letter with the words: "But most of all I blame myself for the entire ethical degradation I allowed you to bring on me. The basis of character is will power, and my will became utterly subject to yours. It sounds a grotesque thing to say, but it is none the less true. It was the triumph of the smaller over the bigger nature. It was the case of that tyranny of the weak over the strong which somewhere in one of my plays I describe as being the only tyranny that lasts." Douglas, who claimed never to have read the letter, found the contents so upsetting he left the witness box, only to be called back and reprimanded by the judge. After a three-day trial, the jury took just over two hours to return its verdict. Arthur Ransome was found not guilty of libel and the publicity the book received meant that it was now going to be a bestseller. In spite of the ruling in his favour, Ransome insisted that the offending passages be deleted from every future edition of the book.

As Michael Kettle , the author of Salome's Last Veil : The Libel Case of the Century (1977), has pointed out: "At the trial, the unpublished portion of De Profundis (carefully hoarded by Ross, but which Wilde, on release from prison, had almost at once repudiated), together with some of Bosie's letters to Wilde (which Ross had seized on Wilde's deathbed), were produced with deadly effect. Bosie lost the case. This, in fact, was Ross's revenge on Bosie for supplanting him in Wilde's affections. Bosie, who had just gone bankrupt, suddenly became a changed man. He now saw Ross as the cause of all his troubles; he even repudiated Wilde himself. He attacked Ross bitterly as a homosexual, with continual open libels. Bosie's father, Lord Queensberry, had hounded and finally ruined Wilde. Now Bosie himself was on the warpath against a widely known homosexual." In January 1914, Douglas' friend, the journalist, Thomas Crosland , wrote a long, deliberately libellous letter to Ross, accusing him of being a homosexual.

Unwilling to become involved in a court-case, Ross did not respond to the letter. The following month copies of this letter were sent to various people, including Herbert Asquith , the prime minister, Chief Justice Charles Darling and the editor of The Morning Post . When this information appeared in the newspaper, Ross had no option but to accuse Douglas of criminal libel. In November 1914, Douglas appeared in court. Although the case went very much against Ross, the jury was divided. Before the case could be reheard, Ross abandoned the action, and offered to pay Douglas' costs. Douglas, short of money, had to accept. Ross was forced to leave his post as valuer of pictures and drawings for the Board of Inland Revenue and retire from public life. After the court-case Douglas discovered that Ross had become a close friend of Herbert Asquith and Margot Asquith . He sent a letter to King George V complaining about the prime minister's relationship with Ross. In April 1915, Douglas published a poem, All's Well With England, which implied that Margot was a lesbian and that her husband was having a sexual relationship with Ross.

Douglas also became convinced that Ross and the Asquiths were members of a secret society called the Unseen Hand . As Ernest Sackville Turner , the author of Dear Old Blighty (1980) has pointed out: "One of the great delusions of the war was that there existed an Unseen (or Hidden, or Invisible) Hand, a pro-German influence which perennially strove to paralyse the nation's will and to set its most heroic efforts at naught...

As defeat seemed to loom, as French military morale broke and Russia made her separate peace, more and more were ready to believe that the Unseen Hand stood for a confederacy of evil men, taking their orders from Berlin, dedicated to the downfall of Britain by subversion of the military, the Cabinet, the Civil Service and the City; and working not only through spiritualists, whores and homosexuals." In December 1917, Noel Pemberton Billing published an article in The Imperialist by Arnold Henry White that argued that Germany was under the control of homosexuals (White called them urnings): "Espionage is punished by death at the Tower of London, but there is a form of invasion which is as deadly as espionage: the systematic seduction of young British soldiers by the German urnings and their agents... Failure to intern all Germans is due to the invisible hand that protects urnings of enemy race... When the blond beast is an urning, he commands the urnings in other lands. They are moles. They burrow. They plot.

They are hardest at work when they are most silent." It was true that there was a great increase in cases of sodomy coming before the British courts but the main reason for this was the large numbers of young men being herded together under wartime conditions. Relying on information supplied by Harold S. Spencer , Billing published an article in The Imperialist on 26th January, 1918, revealing the existence of a Black Book : "There exists in the Cabinet Noir of a certain German Prince a book compiled by the Secret Service from reports of German agents who have infested this country for the past twenty years, agents so vile and spreading such debauchery and such lasciviousness as only German minds can conceive and only German bodies execute." Billing claimed the book listed the names of 47,000 British sexual perverts, mostly in high places, being blackmailed by the German Secret Service. He added: "It is a most catholic miscellany.

The names of Privy Councillors, youths of the chorus, wives of Cabinet Ministers, dancing girls, even Cabinet Ministers themselves, while diplomats, poets, bankers, editors, newspaper proprietors, members of His Majesty's Household follow each other with no order of precedence." Billing went onto argue that "the thought that 47,000 English men and women are held in enemy bondage through fear calls all clean spirits to mortal combat". In February 1918 it was announced by theatrical producer, Jack Grein , that Maud Allan would give two private performances of Oscar Wildes's Salomé in April. It had to be a private showing because the play had long been banned by the Lord Chamberlain as being blasphemous. Noel Pemberton Billing had heard rumours, probably put around by Douglas, that Allan was a lesbian and was having an affair with Margot Asquith . On 16th February, 1918, the front page of The Vigilante had a headline, "The Cult of the Clitoris".

This was followed by the paragraph: "To be a member of Maud Allan's private performances in Oscar Wilde's Salome one has to apply to a Miss Valetta, of 9 Duke Street, Adelphi, W.C. If Scotland Yard were to seize the list of those members I have no doubt they would secure the names of several of the first 47,000." This was a reference to the so-called Black Book . As soon as Maud Allan became aware of the article she put the matter into the hands of her solicitor. In March 1918, Allan commenced criminal proceedings for obscene, criminal and defamatory libel. As Douglas had been involved with Oscar Wilde in the original production of the play, he was asked to give evidence on behalf of Noel Pemberton Billing . He also promised to give Douglas the opportunity to attack his old enemy, Robert Ross . The libel case opened at the Old Bailey in May, 1918. Billing chose to conduct his own defence, in order to provide the opportunity to make the case against the government and the so-called Unseen Hand group.

The prosecution was led by Ellis Hume-Williams and Travers Humphreys and the case was heard in front of Chief Justice Charles Darling . Alfred Douglas was cross-examined by Billing on the 1st June. He asked him about the production of Salomé in 1892: "Yes, he was most particular. He attended rehearsals, and took a great deal of trouble... I translated the play (Salome) from the French, and I had many conversations with Wilde about it, and I have a very particular knowledge of what he meant by the play... he intended the play to be an exhibition of perverted sexual passion excited in a young girl; and there are other things in it... there is one passage which is sodomitic... Wilde was a man who cloaked up those things in flowery language." Noel Pemberton Billing asked Douglas if he regretted meeting in Oscar Wilde : "I do most intensely... I think he had a diabolical influence on everyone he met. I think he is the greatest force for evil that has appeared in Europe during the last 350 years... He was the agent of the devil in every possible way.

He was a man whose whole object in life was to attack and to sneer at virtue, and to undermine it in every way by every possible means, sexually and otherwise." In his summing up Billing argued: "I admired Lord Alfred's courage in coming here. The story of his regrettable past almost forgotten; wiped out and washed out by the conflagration of Europe... he comes back into that witness-box... knowing full well that they would rake up the whole of that sordid and regrettable past, he came here... They may try to hurl mud at the witnesses I have brought here; but it is no use bringing people here who have never heard of sodomy, who have never heard of sadism. That man has the courage to come here, to be bullied by the judge." It has been claimed that it was Douglas' evidence that helped Billing win his case. In July 1920, Douglas became the editor of the weekly magazine, Plain English. He appointed Harold S. Spencer as his assistant editor.

Michael Kettle , the author of Salome's Last Veil : The Libel Case of the Century (1977), has pointed out: "Bosie (Douglas) at this time was obsessed with the story then circulating in Fleet Street that the Jews had somehow engineered the death of Lord Kitchener, who went down in the Hampshire in 1916, when on his way out to Russia; and that Churchill had deliberately circulated a false account of the Battle of Jutland (which took place just before the Hampshire sank), which enabled his friend the Jewish financier Sir Ernest Cassel to make a killing on the New York Stock Exchange and give the Churchills some £40,000 worth of furniture." Douglas continued his campaign against Winston Churchill and he issued 30,000 copies of a pamphlet entitled The Murder of Lord Kitchener and the Truth about the Battle of Jutland and the Jews. As a result he was arrested and charged for criminal libel. He was found guilty and was sentenced to six months imprisonment. While in Wormwood Scrubs he wrote In Excelis, his most famous poem. On his release he dropped his anti-Wilde mania and his campaign against Churchill.

Books by Douglas included The Complete Poems of Lord Alfred Douglas (1928), Autobiography (1929), a book of poems, Lyrics (1935) and Oscar Wilde: a Summing Up (1940). On 20th March 1945, while staying with friends in Lancing , he suffered a fatal heart attack. He was interred beside his mother in the Franciscan Friary Cemetery in Crawley , West Sussex . 1000+ images about Oscar Wilde on Pinterest | Irish, Dorian gray and Sons Lord Alfred Douglas and Oscar Wilde were supposedly involved in a clandestine affair. Persecution and prosecution by Lord Douglas, the father, destroyed Oscar Wilde and ultimately led to his early death a shattered man. See More 8: Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas - 10 Career-Ending Affairs | HowStuffWorks 8 Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas A studio portrait of Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas, 1894 © The British Library/Robana via Getty Images Lord Alfred "Bosie" Douglas was the third son of a Marquess, John Douglas of Queensberry.

Bosie left Oxford without a degree, but with a huge beef against his father that ended up being the destruction of his great love , Oscar Wilde, whom he met and fell for in 1891 [source: Douglas ]. He was always known as a spoiled dandy, dissolute and clever, and over the course of their tumultuous relationship, he leaned pretty heavily on Oscar for money and forgiveness, and always got it. Their biggest fight came out of a disagreement over Bosie's mistranslation of Wilde's play "Salomé," which he wrote in French. The drama eventually blew up to involve the play's publisher, and even the famous art nouveau illustrator Aubrey Beardsley, whose cantankerous descriptions of the whole problem are still pretty funny: "For one week," he wrote, "The numbers of telegraph and messenger boys who came to the door was simply scandalous." Eventually, the Marquess had had enough of all this, and wrote Bosie a famous letter excoriating him for failing out of Oxford, avoiding a career, and threatening to cut him off if he didn't shape up.

"What a funny little man you are," Bosie responded by telegram, which is pretty awesome, but led to the eventual destruction of both Bosie and his on-again, off-again lover. Dad threatened his son with a thrashing, and even more importantly, with a huge public scandal if he didn't break things off with the famous playwright. They traded barbs ("I detest you," wrote the son; "You miserable creature," wrote the father) until eventually Bosie's brother -- also involved in a homosexual affair -- died in a suspicious hunting accident [source: Douglas ]. Queensberry decided to save Bosie, and thus the family, by going after Wilde directly. He made up weird plans, like throwing fruit during one of Wilde's plays, and left the author creepy notes all over town, including a calling card which insinuated that Wilde was a sodomite. Against advice from everybody, including George Bernard Shaw himself, Wilde brought libel charges against Queensberry and had him arrested. The accusations of homosexuality were enough to inspire this offensive, in those days: It was a capital crime.

But once the defense started tossing out romantic and suggestive letters from Wilde to the Marquess's son, it stopped being about libel and started being a referendum on Wilde's own character -- and eventually, his body of work. Wilde dropped the suit, but a day later came under arrest for the series of indecency trials and appeals that would end his freedom and his career. While this kind of familial dysfunction -- and the dramatic personalities involved -- may well have brought him down by other means, it's interesting to think that less than 200 years ago, simply leaving around postcards accusing a man of being gay was enough to destroy him. And destroy him, in many ways, it did. 1000+ ideas about Lord Alfred Douglas on Pinterest | Che Guevara, Marquess and Richard Ii Forward Lord Alfred Bruce Douglas (1870 – 1945), nicknamed Bosie, was a British author & poet, better known as the allegedly intimate friend & lover of the writer Oscar Wilde. Douglas was the son of John Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry.

In 1891, he met Oscar Wilde; although the playwright was married with two sons, they soon began an affair. He has been described as spoiled, reckless, insolent & extravagant. He would spend money on boys & gambling & expected Wilde to contribute to his tastes. See more Oscar Wilde Reviews & Ratings - IMDb IMDb 25 out of 25 people found the following review useful: Cheap sets and great acting. from Toronto, Canada 19 October 2000 Whatever money was spent on this movie certainly didn't go on the sets, the furniture looks as though it was assembled by a local handyman and the trial scenes, which make up the largest part of the film, seem to be taking place in a converted church hall or school gymnasium with hastily constructed props. However this happens to be a very good film indeed, the superb acting carries the film and makes it far better than the more lavish Peter Finch version which was released about the same time. I've always thought of Robert Morley as just a comic character playing himself but here he really becomes Oscar Wilde. You can imagine Wilde talking and behaving as he does in this movie . The verbal exchanges between Morley as Wilde and Ralph Richardson as the prosecutor are magnificent.

Wilde enjoying the limelight, plays to the gallery and wins every one of the exchanges until he gets too confident, makes one fatal error and then the prosecutor starts to chip away at his defense. The minor characters are uniformly well acted with Phyllis Calvert as Wilde's wife, Dennis Price as his loyal friend and Edward Chapman as the boorish Marquis of Queensbury . John Neville is probably a little too old to play Sir Alfred Douglas but his skilful acting makes it work . The final scenes between Wilde and his family are very touching. Well worth seeing. from Pa. 12 July 2000 Unlike the stiff and flashy Peter Finch film released a year later,this film is a gem. Robert Morely more than captures the wit,pain and humanity of Oscar Wilde. The film is very daring for its time,not only by presenting Wilde's trials for Gross Indecency on film,but for its loving and sympathetic portrayal of the man. John Neville is also wonderful as Bosie Douglass,Wilde's lover,and Sir Ralph Richardson as Edward Carson illuminates the trial scenes.

The interrogation of Morley by Richardson,and Morley's witty comebacks are not only tyhe highlight of the film,but possibly could be one of filmdom's greatest trial scenes. Where the Finch film glossed over the surface of the events,this film takes you into the real people involved,Phyliss Calvert as Wilde's Wife,Constance and Dennis Price as his friend Robbie Ross are also wonderful in their role. Its a shame this film is not yet available on video for all to cherish. Was the above review useful to you? 24 out of 28 people found the following review useful: "Oh, he was too ugly to kiss..." from United States 2 April 2005 Oscar Wilde reputation is set for all time. He was a brilliant, witty writer of graceful style. He was also a bi-sexual, whose affair with Lord Alfred Douglas led to a tragic final fall when exposed in court. What most people forget is that the trial where he was exposed was a libel suit against Lord Alfred's brutal and mad father the Marquess of Queensbury (the one who gave us the rules for boxing).

Queensbury hated his sons and their mother, and his antics helped lead to the suicide of one of the sons (the private secretary of Prime Minister, Lord Roseberry). Queensbury disliked Wilde for his influence over Lord Alfred and his unspeakable homosexual affair with his son. He sent him a note on a card, "To Oscar Wilde, disguised as a "somdomite"." The Marquess presumed that by misspelling sodomite he was protecting himself but smearing Wilde. Wilde had an opportunity then to ignore the slur and go abroad for awhile (which most men in his position would have done). He decided to sue - goaded into it by Lord Alfred (who saw this as a safe opportunity to hit at his father). Never has such a critically important legal decision been made on such a stupid basis. The barrister for Queensbury was Edward Carson, one of England's greatest lawyers. He is the model for the barrister played by Robert Donat in "The Winslow Boy" (based on Carson's defense of young Archer-Shee in the 1911 legal action).

Carson was a master of cross-examination, and he had plenty of information that Queensbury (and Wilde's many enemies) had gathered about his sexual activities. But Wilde was able to fend off the attack for hours, until he reached a series of questions about a telegraph boy who was available for sex for hire. Carson had been unable to make a dent into Wilde's hide so far, and then out of sheer desperation asked, "Did you kiss him?" Wilde was amazed - the question did throw him. "Did I kiss him?", he repeated. "Yes", answered Carson with a lack of real interest. Wilde had been trumping Carson with one-liners that left the court in stitches. Instead of saying, "Of course not!" or "How dare you!", which would have helped, Wilde quipped the sentence in the summary line above. And Carson saw the light at the end of the tunnel. Wilde never recovered after that. The jury was able to absolve Queensbury of libel (after all, it was shown that Wilde was homosexual). The authorities now held back for nearly twelve hours from going after Wilde. They simply hoped he would flee to the continent. Instead, Wilde decided to stay and fight.

It is the second trial that really demolished him. He was now on trial of committing sodomy, and the evidence was too overwhelming. Found guilty, he was sentenced to three years in prison. He left prison and lived in France until he died in Paris, a broken, impoverished wreck, in 1900. If you are a homosexual, Wilde is one of the great martyr's to the cause. If you love good writing his end is a dismal tragedy. All the films of his life retell it's denouement. It never gets any better in the retelling - there is no repaired last act. Even (historically) a "reformed", right-wing supporting Lord Alfred rejected the image of his "Bosie" period in later years - claiming he never was a homosexual. One ends just pitying Wilde, unless one is just a reactionary type or a mindless idiot like Queensbury. Robert Morley never gave a better dramatic performance on film (as opposed to his comic performances) than in this film. Witness his moment on the witness stand, when he realizes the result of his blunder.

The cast of John Neville, Ralph Richardson, Edward Chapman, and Dennis Price do equally well in this tale of talent that was shot down so stupidly. I certainly recommend watching it...and then reading "Dorian Gray", "The Importance of Being Earnest", "Salome", "The Ballad of the Reading Gaol", to get a glimmer of the talent that was smashed beyond repair. Was the above review useful to you? 16 out of 17 people found the following review useful: Gregory Ratoff's got only the best film about Oscar Wilde to declare Author: dbdumonteil 11 October 2006 Without a doubt, this is the film to see if you are deeply interested in this unconventional and fabulous writer that was Oscar Wilde. Two other films about him were shot: "the Trials of Oscar Wilde" and Brian Gilbert's work in 1997 but they aren't found wanting to Gregory Ratoff's version. Of course, it's indisputable that Ratoff's film was made with restricted means as the cheap scenery testify.

It sometimes gives way to drawbacks like in the very last sequence which shows Wilde after his lost trial sitting at the terrace of a Parisian café and next to him, one can hear a musician playing the accordion. A perfect cliché about France. But it's minor quibble and anyway, given the means Ratoff had at his disposal, was there another way to show the audience that Wilde was in Paris under the pseudonym of Sébastien Melmott? Anyway, one can eminently forget the scenery and admire how Ratoff conceived his film. First, he eschewed many traps of the biopic film including the following one: to relate all Wilde's life from his childhood. He chose to steer his film on the period of his life which began with the relationship Wilde developed with his young protégé Lord Alfred Douglas. In a nutshell, this scandalous love (for the time) was the beginning of the end for the witty writer who fell foul of the chic, posh Victorian society. As everyone knows, homosexuality was banned in this very conservative, ossified society and it could only end up as a trial for Wilde. A trial he could only lose but during which he showed a stalwart courage thanks to his own witty answers.

This trial is the pinnacle of the film and Ratoff succeeds in incorporating elements of Wilde's anterior life like the introduction at the outset of his wondrous novel "the Picture of Dorian Gray" (1889). And one can only admire his style to film the evolution of this trial and the verbal exchanges between Wilde and sir Edward Carson. At first, Wilde seems sure of himself and his cues make the audience laugh but bit by bit confidence leaves him as he is dwarfed by dogged Carson's ruthless questions. In the long run, Ratoff weaves a stifling atmosphere and it's impossible not to feel it. All you have to do is to sit and admire the quality of the dialogs and also of the actors. Robert Morley confers to his main character the wit and wisdom which made Wilde famous. And Ralph Richardson equally delivers a prime performance. But John Neville seems too old for the role Lord Alfred Douglas. In the most recent version, Jude Law was a better choice thanks to his relatively young age. Of course, this film will never supersede a good book about one of the most crucial writers who existed on this planet but Ratoff's work makes him justice. Was the above review useful to you?

15 out of 17 people found the following review useful: Correction 20 June 2009 The other comment describes Sir Edward Carson as the prosecutor of Oscar Wilde. That's incorrect. What happened was that, in a fit of madness, Oscar Wilde sued the Marquis of Queensbury (the father of his lover, Sir Alfred Douglas and the author of the rules of modern boxing) for slander, based on an accusation by Queensbury that Wilde was a 'somdomite' (sic). All of Wilde's friends tried to talk him out of it - Victorian England worked on a 'don't ask, don't tell' basis, and Wilde was quite safe had he done nothing. But his success as a playwright emboldened him, and he filed suit. Carson was retained by the Marquis to defend him. The famous cross-examination occurred during the trial of Wilde's slander complaint. He was destroyed on cross examination, in such a way that the nature of his lifestyle became too public to be ignored. Carson, after he had won the slander case, actually tried to dissuade the Crown from prosecuting, but to no avail.

A criminal prosecution did follow, in which Carson was not involved, ending in Wilde's conviction, and a 2 year prison sentence that effectively ended his career and life. Carson, an Irish Protestant, earned my own condemnation for his role in opposing Irish independence. But in the Wilde case, he was responding for the defense, and he took active steps thereafter to prevent a prosecution. Wilde was the principal cause of his own legal destruction. Was the above review useful to you? 6 out of 6 people found the following review useful: Lord Of Language from Buffalo, New York 12 July 2012 It took over two decades for Robert Morley to bring Oscar Wilde to the screen. Morley scored his first big break playing Oscar Wilde in what might be described as an off Drury Lane theater because homosexuality was the love that dare not speak its name in 1936. In 1960 in America it was still not spoken though in the United Kingdom it was starting to get a whisper or two. One of the great men of literature was brought down by Victorian mores and justice when he happened to run afoul of a monstrously homophobic father who accused him of seducing his son.

The movie-going public had a double dose of Oscar Wilde in 1960 with Peter Finch giving an equally brilliant performance as Wilde in another film which is seen a lot more often because the producer had the foresight to do it in color. So Morley's feature kind of took a back seat. Both films concentrate totally on the trial, the first one for libel that Wilde stupidly brought against the Marquis of Queensbury, father of his inamorata Lord Alfred Douglas. Douglas is played by young John Neville and he's a weak callow youth. I thought Neville's interpretation of the part lacking the bite that John Fraser's had in the Finch film or of Jude Law in the 1997 film Wilde which starred Stephen Fry. In the Citadel Film series book on the Films of James Mason, Mason himself said that he liked what Ralph Richardson did with the part of Edward Carson better than his own performance. Richardson could easily have been labeled the shark of Old Bailey. He is devastatingly brilliant in his performance. Mason's words were extremely generous to a colleague he obviously respected and admired. Mason was Carson in the Peter Finch film and he was pretty good himself. Phyllis Calvert was the long suffering Mrs.

Wilde with whom Oscar had two sons. Poor Wilde was born a hundred years too soon. Today he'd be Ian McKellan and proudly marry Lord Alfred Douglas for better or worse, richer or poorer. Given Bosy's habits it would have been poorer very soon. Robert Morley was a great actor who could play a great range of parts from comic to tragic. We're fortunate indeed to have his breakthrough performance preserved Was the above review useful to you? 9 out of 12 people found the following review useful: "You wish to thank me, well, . . We must do something about that" from USA 27 June 2008 Across the decades, cinematic directors have sought to discover the essence of the noted 18th century humorous, poet and playwright Oscar Wilde. Some films shower him with so many accolades, they drown his image in wine and sexual innuendos. Other movies hardly delve into the magical but certainly secret complexity of the talented English writer, using his notorious trial, tribulations and eventual imprisonment as Gris, reducing him to a mere scandalous shell of his life. Perhaps, there are many film versions of Mr. Wilde, but only one stands out which personifies the ideal man.

I believe this offering, "Oscar Wilde," (1960) portrayed by enormously talented Robert Morley as the playwright, is the best. True Mr. Morley is such a versatile actor in other films, some would suggest his comic side, or his stuffy, droll demeanor, detract from this impressive writer. I disagree. Despite his inner personal conflicts, Morley exemplifies the quick wit, delightful charm and social elegance befitting the true character of the 18th century cosmopolitan gentleman. Moreley more than adequately depicts the larger than life of Oscar Wilde. Ralph Richardson, plays, Sir Edward Carson the prosecuting attorney who's sole ambition was to destroy the popular writer and his libertine attitudes. Although seeking to protect the upper-class from scandal, his attack was nothing short of evisceral. As one newspaper noted at the trial, the prosecutor was seen to be as objective as a circling shark. All in all, this film is an excellent attempt at epitomizing the historical icon, and is accepted as the very best to-date. **** Was the above review useful to you?

2 out of 2 people found the following review useful: Poignant portrait of an embattled wit 1 May 2013 *** This review may contain spoilers *** I enjoyed getting to know a little about Oscar Wilde in this biopic about "the love that dare not speak its name." Robert Morley, an actor I had never seen before, manages to be hugely sympathetic as the bon vivant who is married and has sons yet leads a secret life in pursuit of lower-class young men. He gets caught up in the rivalry between a gay dandy, played well by John Neville, and his authoritarian father, which leads to a humiliating trial for "indecencies" and eventually a jail sentence that sends Wilde, alcoholic and delusional, to an early Paris grave. Some of the courtroom scenes are tedious and hard to sort through, and there is way too much skewering of Wilde while he sits on the witness stand, but the movie offers a sampling of the quips and aphorisms of a man who was quite knowledgeable psychologically...

"It's easy to sympathize with the misfortunes of a friend, but it takes a really fine nature to sympathize with his successes." "Next time I shall mention you prominently -- but I cannot promise you it will be to your liking," a fellow author tells Wilde, who replies: "That is the price we all pay for being thoroughly understood." "Laughter is not at all a bad way to start a friendship..." "Nothing is ever quite true." "One cannot find love by searching for it, Bosie it comes to us unbidden." "I sometimes feel as if I've given away my whole soul to someone who treats it as if it were a flower to wear in his coat." "An idea that is not dangerous is not worthy of being called an idea." "The realization of oneself is the prime aim of life " "I have a passion for civilizing the community." "Absinthe -- it helps you to see things as you wish they were." Wilde was delightful company throughout this film. Though the word "homosexual" is never uttered, this 1960 production seems way ahead of its time. Was the above review useful to you?

Enjoyable but too sudden an ending from United Kingdom 25 August 2016 Yes I enjoyed this 1960 biopic but considered the ending too abrupt.To give the film more verisimilitude I would have liked the producer to show Oscar at "hard labour" which involved pointless physical activities given to prisoners who were so sentenced.Robert Morley looked his same rotund self when he came out of Reading gaol after his two years of "hard labour" losing weight as he had not five minutes before looked when he started his sentence!Also I missed the writing of his "Ballad of Reading Gaol" which he wrote when the prison authorities restored his writing materials to him in his cell. Peter Finch,Peter Egan and Stephen Fry to my knowledge have also played this great literary figure & wit since the production date of this 1960 version and I accorded it 6/10. Was the above review useful to you? Great acting but somewhat sanitized from United States 20 August 2016 I don't know much about Oscar Wilde the man. Instead, I just know him through his works.

This film was on Turner Classic Movie's "Summer Under the Stars" honoring Ralph Richardson recently, even though Ralph Richardson was a supporting player. Instead this is the only film I can remember in which Robert Morley stars, and in the title role, and he did an excellent job. The film starts out as rather a love story between Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas, with them meeting at an opening of "Lady Windemere's Fan", having what could be considered a romantic exchange of words, and then would not have likely seen each other again save the fact that Lord Douglas was being blackmailed by an unsavory character over some letters that he wrote to another man. Not knowing what to do he contacts Wilde. Wilde comes to Douglas' rooms and tells Douglas to say nothing. When the blackmailer arrives, Wilde humorously impersonates a member of Scotland Yard and threatens the blackmailer with prison. The blackmailer scurries off, scared to death. And from that point the Wilde/Douglas friendship/romance begins. England did not have a production code in the strict sense that America did at the time, which dealt with all kinds of things besides sex.

However, the film has Wilde claiming - and even seeming to believe - that he is just the dearest friend of Douglas. During his friendship with Douglas he makes the acquaintance of other young men, with the film insinuating that they are gay. They meet in groups, often in public places, and the rumors begin to fly. These rumors get back to the Marquis of Queensberry, Douglas' father, who is a brute beast and is determined to get Wilde away from his son one way or another. What starts out as the trial of Queensberry for libel against Wilde turns into a trial of Wilde for the vague charge of indecency, which, from what I could gather, was not for a particular act, but for an overall lifestyle. How strange that in Victorian England you could be sent to jail for either libel (a civil crime in America) or just overall indecency - what you were, not a specific act. Morley gives a very sensitive portrayal of a man who apparently is surprised that he might be gay, and it takes going to trial to make him really think about it. John Neville as Douglas can be sensitive and tender to Wilde, reckless in word and deed, and vindictive when it comes to dear old dad.

Morley's Wilde seems blind to the "angry son" side of Douglas until it is too late. Phyllis Calvert does not get much screen time, but as Wilde's wife she comes across as a sweet woman who loves Oscar come what may. Ralph Richardson as the prosecuting attorney brings the trial scenes to life, although his constant opining in open court, trying to prejudice the jury, would never be allowed in courts today. Dennis Price plays Robert Ross, the stalwart friend of Wilde who offers both advice and encouragement. How surprised I was to see Gregory Ratoff, a Russian immigrant who often played buffoonish executives and agents in American films, was the director of this sensitive character study and drama. I'd really recommend this one. The acting is excellent and it is a rare chance to see Robert Morley in a starring role that required a great deal of range. Was the above review useful to you? Page 1 of 2: SparkNotes: The Importance of Being Earnest: Context The Importance of Being Earnest Oscar Wilde Table of Contents Plot Overview Oscar Wilde, celebrated playwright and literary provocateur, was born in Dublin on October 16, 1854.

He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin and Magdalen College, Oxford before settling in London. During his days at Dublin and Oxford, he developed a set of attitudes and postures for which he would eventually become famous. Chief among these were his flamboyant style of dress, his contempt for conventional values, and his belief in aestheticism—a movement that embraced the principle of art for the sake of beauty and beauty alone. After a stunning performance in college, Wilde settled in London in 1878, where he moved in circles that included Lillie Langtry, the novelists Henry James and George Moore, and the young William Butler Yeats. Literary and artistic acclaim were slow in coming to Wilde. In 1884, when he married Constance Lloyd, Wilde’s writing career was still a work in progress. He had gone on a lecture tour of North America and been lampooned in the 1881 Gilbert and Sullivan operetta Patience as the self-consciously idiosyncratic philosopher-poet Reginald Bunthorne, but he was celebrated chiefly as a well-known personality and a wit. He may have been the first person ever to become famous for being famous.

During the late 1880s, Wilde wrote reviews, edited a women’s magazine, and published a volume of poetry and one of children’s stories. In 1891, his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, appeared and was attacked as scandalous and immoral. In that same year, he met Lord Alfred Douglas, who would eventually become his lover, and Wilde finally hit his literary stride. Over the next few years, he wrote four plays: Lady Windermere’s Fan, A Woman of No Importance, An Ideal Husband, and The Importance of Being Earnest. Lady Windermere’s Fan and A Woman of No Importance enjoyed successful runs in the West End in 1892 and 1893, respectively. An Ideal Husband opened in January 1895, but it was The Importance of Being Earnest, which opened a month later, that is regarded by many as Oscar Wilde’s masterpiece. Its first performance at the St. James’s Theater on February 14, 1895 came at the height of Wilde’s success as a popular dramatist. Wilde was finally the darling of London society, a position he had striven for years to attain.

In many ways, The Importance of Being Earnest was an artistic breakthrough for Wilde, something between self-parody and a deceptively flippant commentary on the dramatic genre in which Wilde had already had so much success. Wilde’s genre of choice was the Victorian melodrama, or “sentimental comedy,” derived from the French variety of “well-made play” popularized by Scribe and Sardou. In such plays, fallen women and abandoned children of uncertain parentage figure prominently, letters cross and recross the stage, and dark secrets from the past rise to threaten the happiness of seemingly respectable, well-meaning characters. In Wilde’s hands, the form of Victorian melodrama became something else entirely. Wilde introduced a new character to the genre, the figure of the “dandy” (a man who pays excessive attention to his appearance). This figure added a moral texture the form had never before possessed. The character of the dandy was heavily autobiographical and often a stand-in for Wilde himself, a witty, overdressed, self-styled philosopher who speaks in epigrams and paradoxes, ridicules the cant and hypocrisy of society’s moral arbiters, and self-deprecatingly presents himself as trivial, shallow, and ineffectual.

In fact, the dandy in these plays always proves to be deeply moral and essential to the happy resolution of the plot. The Importance of Being Earnest was an early experiment in Victorian melodrama. Part satire, part comedy of manners, and part intellectual farce, this play seems to have nothing at stake because the world it presents is so blatantly and ostentatiously artificial. Below the surface of the light, brittle comedy, however, is a serious subtext that takes aim at self-righteous moralism and hypocrisy, the very aspects of Victorian society that would, in part, bring about Wilde’s downfall. During 1895, however, a series of catastrophes stemming from Wilde’s relationship with Lord Alfred, also a poet, led to personal humiliation and social, professional, and financial ruin. On February 28, 1895, two weeks after The Importance of Being Earnest’s opening night, Lord Alfred’s belligerent, homophobic father, the Marquess of Queensberry, publicly accused Wilde of “posing as a somdomite.” The nobleman meant “sodomite,” of course, an insulting and potentially defamatory term for a homosexual.

Queensberry had for some time been harassing Wilde with insulting letters, notes, and confrontations and had hoped to disrupt the opening night of The Importance of Being Earnest with a public demonstration, which never took place. Against the advice of his friends, Wilde sued for libel and lost. Wilde probably should have fled the country, as the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885 had made homosexual acts punishable by up to two years’ imprisonment. However, Wilde chose to stay and was arrested. Despite information about Wilde’s private life and writings that emerged at the trial, the prosecution initially proved unsuccessful. However, Wilde was tried a second time, convicted, and sentenced to prison for two years. Wilde may have remained in England for a number of reasons, including self-destructiveness, denial, desperation, and a desire for martyrdom. However, some historians have suggested that Wilde’s relentless persecution by the government was a diversionary tactic. Lord Alfred’s older brother was reportedly also having a homosexual affair with Archibald Philip Primrose, Lord Rosebery, the man who would become prime minister.

Queensberry was apparently so outraged that he threatened to disclose the relationship, and the government reacted by punishing Wilde and his lover in an effort to assuage the marquess. In any case, Wilde served his full sentence under conditions of utmost hardship and cruelty. Following his release from prison, his health and spirit broken, he sought exile in France, where he lived out the last two years of his life in poverty and obscurity under an assumed name. He died in Paris in 1900. For sixty or seventy years after Wilde’s death, critics and audiences regarded The Importance of Being Earnest as a delightful but utterly frivolous and superficial comedy, a view that partly reflects the mindset of a period in which homosexuality remained a guarded topic. The decriminalization of homosexuality in England in 1967 and the emergence in American of an interest in gay culture, and particularly in the covert homosexual literature of the past, has made it possible to view the play in a different light. The play’s danger and subversion are easier to see from a twenty-first-century perspective.

In the ambiguity over exactly what people refer to when they speak of “wicked” or immoral behavior, we can detect a system of coded references to homosexuality, just as we can infer a more general comment on the hypocrisy of late Victorian society. More Help The Importance Of Being Wilde The Importance Of Being Wilde News The famed and controversial Irish playwright Oscar Wilde died a hundred years ago this week with his reputation in ruins and his finances in tatters. Author of works such as "The Picture of Dorian Gray" and "The Importance Of Being Earnest," Wilde was revered for his wit, cleverness and flamboyant nature. His career took a turn for the worse when he scandalized London society with his homosexual affair with Lord Alfred Douglas, resulting in the author's two-year imprisonment for indecency in 1895. After his release, Wilde emigrated to France and died there three years later at age 46, penniless and alone in a cheap Paris hotel room.

Wilde once said, "the one duty we owe to history is to rewrite it." Two medical researchers from South Africa have done just that, by announcing recently that the playwright's most likely cause of death was not syphilis, as was widely believed, but a severe ear infection. Drs. Ashley Robins and Sean Sellers from the University of Cape Town Medical School focused their research on a long history of ear infections in Wilde's right ear, thought to have begun while he was an undergraduate at Oxford University. Central to their findings was the appearance at a London auction in 1982 of Wilde's medical certificate that showed he had developed meningoencephalitis, a chronic middle-ear infection. This, they claim, eventually caused his death. Try Newsweek for only $1.25 per week The long-held belief that Wilde died from the sexually transmitted disease is now very unlikely, say Robins and Sellers. The syphilis theory first appeared 12 years after his death in an influential biography of Wilde written by Arthur Ransome. Dr.

Isobel Murray, a Wilde expert at Scotland's University of Aberdeen, says Ransome's "daft argument became the accepted version." Many were skeptical of this and, according to Murray, Wilde's ear problem "was actually identified in 1959." Despite this, Richard Ellmann's respected 1987 biography once again gave the verdict as death by syphilis. Anne Varty, a lecturer in English and drama at the University of London says: "There was no suggestion that he ever had the disease." Forty-one years on, this can now be confirmed. Do these findings merit a reassessment of Oscar Wilde, whose open homosexuality and decadent, sometimes frivolous, nature shocked Victorian society? Murray believes this has happened already. Since the 1970s "changing attitudes toward homosexuality" have sparked the "rehabilitation" of Wilde as a cultural figure, she says, and he is no longer considered "notorious." "Now that he has received public acceptance," says Murray, "nobody cares about what he died of." Varty agrees and adds that Wilde's "pioneering spirit," which led to his demise a century ago, is today a contributing factor in his renewed popularity.

The centenary of Wilde's death this week is a good opportunity to rediscover his work. Wilde's play "De Profundis" and another play about Wilde, "In Extremis," written by Neil Bartlett, are already hot tickets at London's National Theatre, where they will run from Dec. 13 to 16. A week of play readings, discussions and presentations on Wilde and his works is also underway at the National Theatre. The British Library has challenged Wilde's claim that "all art is useless" by exhibiting a selection of manuscripts, photographs, theater posters and memorabilia from his life through Feb. 4, 2001. Wilde's other roles as journalist, art critic and political thinker are being explored at London's Barbican Gallery until Jan. 14. A century on, Oscar Wilde's legacy is flourishing, and he is once more the toast of London, as history is rewritten again. 'Bosie' by Douglas Murray - Houston Chronicle 'Bosie' by Douglas Murray Life of Bosie, Oscar Wilde's lover SUZANNE FERRISS Published 5:30 am, Sunday, September 24, 2000 BOSIE: A Biography of Lord Alfred Douglas.

By Douglas Murray . Talk Miramax Books, $27.50. LORD Alfred Douglas is best known as Oscar Wilde 's lover, the source of Wilde's public humiliation at his trial for "gross indecency" and his subsequent imprisonment. Douglas Murray's biography of Douglas presents "Bosie," as he was affectionately known, as a poet of considerable talent whose reputation was eclipsed by his affair with Wilde. The biographer -- an undergraduate at Magdalen, Bosie's own college at Oxford -- claims that Douglas was "one of Britain's finest poets" and sets out to rehabilitate the man and his work. Douglas was born into a noble Scottish family. He was much-loved by his mother, who saw him as a replacement for a husband distracted by fox hunting and womanizing. She nicknamed him "Boysie" ("little boy"), which was eventually shortened to "Bosie." With his feminine good looks, Bosie was popular in school and at Oxford became the "most prominent homosexual in the university." An indifferent student, he dedicated himself to reading and writing poetry, publishing his own verse in the literary magazines he edited.

He excelled in the sonnet form, which later became the source of his literary success. Douglas first met Wilde in 1891, and six months later they began an affair. Their relationship influenced Douglas' poetry, particularly his verses on homosexuality, including the often anthologized Two Loves with its famous closing line: "I am the love that dare not speak its name." In late Victorian culture, homosexuals were vilified and persecuted under the "Laboucher Amendment" of 1885 that made all homosexual acts -- public and private -- illegal. Murray's book stresses, however, that Wilde's trial emerged more as a consequence of a family feud than late Victorian prudery. Douglas was estranged from his father, the Marquess of Queensbury, because of his father's ill-treatment of his mother and their subsequent divorce. Queensbury's charge that Wilde was "posing as a sodomite" led the latter to charge Queensbury with libel.

But the testimony of male prostitutes, paid for by Queensbury's lawyers, as well as letters exchanged between the two lovers, swayed the jury in favor of Queensbury and led the public prosecutor to charge Wilde separately with "gross indecency." Found guilty, Wilde was sentenced to two years' hard labor. He lost his reputation, his family and eventually his life, owing to injuries sustained during a fall in prison. Murray's story, naturally, focuses on the trial's impact on Douglas. He fled to France, and when Wilde was released from prison, Douglas convinced him to join him there and later in Naples. The two eventually separated but continued to correspond and even meet occasionally until Wilde's death in 1900. Douglas later met and fell in love with poet Olive Custance, attracted by her intelligence and her boyish good looks. They married and had a son, Raymond. Douglas' conversion to heterosexuality was followed by his conversion to Catholicism, and he determined to fight any allusions to his homosexuality in the courts. His marriage and conversion did not provide Douglas with the escape he desired.

In 1911, revival of interest in Wilde's career and life led Douglas to discover that Wilde's literary executor, Robert Ross , had withheld from him Wilde's letter from prison, later published as De Profundis. Douglas pursued Ross with a fury resembling his father's against Wilde. His legal strategy backfired, however, and, like Wilde, Douglas found himself forced to defend his relationship with his former lover and his early poems. At the end of the trial Douglas was bankrupt and abandoned by his wife. These events only augmented his bitterness, and he spent the next few years quarreling with members of the Wilde circle. With the assistance of T.W.H. Crosland he published his version of the Wilde affair, Oscar Wilde and Myself. It is hard not to see the remainder of Douglas' life as simply a tiresome litany of libel cases, the pathetic career of a once gifted man seeking revenge for events of decades past. The height of his aberrant behavior came in his attack on Winston Churchill , the event that sparked Murray's research when he was only a 16-year-old student at Eton .

Douglas claimed that Churchill had conspired with high-profile Jews to murder Lord Kitchener during World War I. Churchill sued, and Douglas was found guilty and sentenced to six months in prison. After his release, he published his Autobiography, in which he admitted his homosexuality but expressed his Catholic guilt and shame at his former behavior. While interest revived in his works, Douglas remained out of step with his times, dismissive of the Modernist work of Eliot, Joyce, Yeats and Auden. Instead, he continued to publish his memoirs and a biography of Wilde, determined to have the final word on the matter. Douglas' self-destructive obsession with the Wilde affair diminished both his talent and his life. He died penniless, with only a handful of mourners attending his funeral. Despite the limitations of his subject, Murray has produced an accomplished biography, thoroughly researched and readable -- and he was only 20 when he composed it.

Question: Whose scandalous affair with Lord Alfred Douglas eventually led to imprisonment?
Answer: Oscar Wilde